


Tuesday is My Good News Day

by seedsofhappy



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7086469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seedsofhappy/pseuds/seedsofhappy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, lonely veterinarian Kim Jongdae meets the man with the white terrier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuesday is My Good News Day

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is my gift for geewizkhalifa for Secret Santa 2014. Originally posted [here](http://sncj-santa.livejournal.com/86316.html)  
> Her prompt: "Can you write a fluff junmyeon/jongdae fic for me? Something lighthearted, maybe with a puppy involved. Also, please use their real names!"  
> 2\. Title comes from the song The Man I Love with lyrics penned by Ira Gershwin. I was so lucky that this title popped up in my head. Couldn't think of a better fit.

You know what Jongdae hates the most? Family gatherings. Because the only thing his relatives do there is to ask him when he’s going to get married.

This Thanksgiving, cousin Kibum walked around with his ugly ring with a huge ugly stone that sparkles and everyone oohed and aahed and awwed and, you guess it, told Jongdae not to worry, it will be his turn too.

But it’s finally over. And that is the only thank he needs to give. Today is Monday. Two months till Christmas when he will have to endure the whole ordeal again. But today is Monday. Back to work day. Jongdae takes a deep breath. Work is good.

“Happy Cyber Monday!” Baekhyun and Chanyeol shout from behind the counter the moment Jongdae steps into the clinic.

“Why are you here?” Jongdae frowns at Chanyeol. Baekhyun is his receptionist, so Baekhyun should be here, but Chanyeol is only the person Baekhyun’s dating.

“I’m tired of seeing dead animals. So I’m here to see some live ones,” Chanyeol grins.

Apparently people are still full from Thursday and have no desire to buy meat yet so meat inspectors are still having a holiday.

“Actually,” Chanyeol says with a nervous smile, holding up Baekhyun’s hand and points to the shining stone on it, “Baekhyun and I …”

“Aaaaaaa,” Jongdae screams, throws his hands in the air and disappears into his office.

He’s curling up under his desk and grumbling at life when he hears the door creak open.

“Only single people are allowed,” he yells.

“I am single,” a voice, not Baekhyun’s or Chanyeol’s voice, says, followed by a disapproving miaow. Shoot. Jongdae scrambles to stand up.

***

Luckily Mr. Do and Lucy (short for Lucifer), his Himalayan cat, accept Jongdae’s sincere apology for the highly unprofessional behavior that he displayed.

“You’re our best friend. You’re the first person we told it to,” Baekhyun says with a sigh. Chanyeol’s gone, with tears in his eyes according to Baekhyun. Jongdae is filled with remorse.

“I know. It’s just that everybody’s getting married,” Jongdae sighs. “I guess it’s selfish of me to want you to see things from my point of view. Again. I’m sorry. Tell Chanyeol I’m sorry.”

Baekhyun stops typing, bites his lower lip and briefly squeezes Jongdae’s hand. “I’m sorry for not thinking of that.”

Jongdae nods and heads back into his office.

“Hey Jongdae?”

“Yeah?”

“What does it mean when a bearded dragon doesn’t poop for days?”

“It means he’s constipated.”

“OK.”

Suspicious silence follows.

“You don’t have a bearded dragon though.”

“No I don’t.”

“What are you doing?”

“I created a profile for you on petweb, the nation’s most trusted source of information on pets.”

Jongdae pushes Baekhyun aside to look at the screen of his desktop.

“Dr. Kim Jongdae. Ready to answer your questions about all domesticated animals.”

“That’s right. I used your best-looking headshot. It’s going to increase your credibility,” Baekhyun beams. “There’s live chat, and pet owners can schedule appointments, and also review. Very convenient.”

“No. They’re going to think I’m so bad I don’t have patients so I sit around answering questions all day,” Jongdae whines.

“No they won’t,” Baekhyun insists. “Everyone’s on here. Zhang Yixing’s on here.”

“How is he is he married yet?”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes. Jongdae lays his head on the counter. “You’re right. Who cares? I don’t,” he mumbles.

“What does it mean if the bearded dragon also has yellow patches on his skin?”

Jongdae picks his head up. “That’s serious tell him or her to set up an appointment.”

***

Fortunately, it’s just constipation and a mild skin infection. A warm bath does the trick instantly. The patchy skin is going to need antifungal applied every day after a diluted disinfectant bath. If it does not get better, bring him back. Jongdae shakes hands with Ms. Park and Brad Pitt the bearded dragon and sees them off at the door. It’s a slow day so he can afford to be extra hospitable.

“So do I call him Brad, or Mr. Pitt?” Jongdae asks, absent-mindedly tangling the cord of the countertop pen till Baekhyun realizes what he’s doing and swats his hand away. “I feel like Brad is too casual. We just met, you know? He didn’t like, tell me to call him Brad or something. But on the other hand, he pooped in front of me.”

Baekhyun keeps playing solitaire.

Jongdae sighs, “Baekhyun. How does love feel like?”

Baekhyun finally looks away from the screen.

“That’s it. You’re going on a blind date this very evening.”

“Really?”

“It’s a friend of Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says, and then he remarkably brightens up. “You know what? This is a brilliant idea. Chanyeol keeps raving about how cute the guy is. You should totally snatch him away so Chanyeol can shut up.”

Kim Jongin is two years younger than the three of them. Chemist. Colleague of Chanyeol. Quiet and a bit shy, endearing to Chanyeol but boring to Baekhyun. And perfect to Jongdae.

They are eating their sandwiches, talking about Jongin and Baekhyun’s genius plan – Baekhyun is to be trusted at all times. Brad Pitt has just left an essay titled ‘5 out of 5, highly recommend’ under Jongdae’s profile – when suddenly a man strides into the clinic, worry written all over his face. He urgently but carefully takes a heaving terrier out of the carrier, paying no heed to how the terrier is shedding all over the side of his expensive-looking navy pinstripe suit.

***

Chocolate poisoning. The westie is going to need 24 hours of close monitoring and activated charcoal administered every 4-6 hours to induce vomiting. It’s not too serious. Mr. Kim brought him here just in time.

But Jongdae has a date tonight he can’t stay at the clinic for 24 hours. He already has no life as is.

“Please bring him to the nearest animal hospital,” he tells Mr. Kim.

Mr. Kim’s mouth drops. He holds up his phone, petweb opened in his browser. “But it says right here that you do emergency,” he says, close to crying. 

“I have to take care of something later today so…,” Jongdae says. Byul the westie pukes on the examination table.

“I’ll go with you,” Jongdae sighs.

It only takes a few minutes by car so Jongdae is not taking too much time out of his work at the clinic. Also he feels very bad that he’s declining a patient he’s totally able to treat only to go to a date.

They are sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, Mr. Kim trembling and Byul breathing heavily in his carrier, when a voice sounds behind them.

“Hello. What do we have here?”

It sounds familiar. Jongdae stands up.

“Yixing?”

***

“You ok there buddy?”

Jongdae is not ok. He collapses into the chair next to Baekhyun behind the counter.

Zhang Yixing love of his life in vet school is married.

“He told me it wouldn’t work out because we were working in the same hospital and coworkers shouldn’t date,” Jongdae hiccups. Baekhyun pats his back comfortingly.

“Now he’s married to Lu freaking Han and they’re in the same hospital how does that work out?” Jongdae bawls and hides his face in Baekhyun’s shoulder.

“But you’re going on a date tonight. You have a life too remember?”

Yeah. Right. Jongdae pulls away. “OK,” he nods.

***

“You’re a vet?” Jongin exclaims, “I have three dogs.”

As soon as Jongin goes to the bathroom, Jongdae takes out his phone and calls Baekhyun.

“You’re not getting any younger my man,” is Baekhyun’s answer.

What a horrible thing to say. But Jongdae is yet to retort when Jongin’s back, unknowingly obnoxiously settling himself next to Jongdae, so Jongdae has to end the call.

“So where were we? Ah, we’re looking at pictures of Jjanggu,” Jongin picks his phone up from the table and pushes it towards Jongdae, “He’s just running on the grass and the moment was so beautiful I had to take out my phone and snap a picture. Look at him. He’s so happy…”

Jongdae puts a hand on Jongin’s shoulder. “Jongin,” he says and stands up, “I just received a phone call. I have an emergency.”

***

When Jongdae reaches the hospital, he finds Mr. Kim sitting on one of the chairs in the waiting room. Mr. Kim stands up at Jongdae’s sight.

“Hi Dr. Kim?”

“There you are. How’s Byul?”

“He’s sleeping. Exhausted after a whole day of throwing up. Got an IV stuck to his little leg. Dr. Zhang said he’s doing well…”

“I told you it’s not serious,” Jongdae assures the man. “He should be able to go home in half a day or so. Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Kim says. “But I’m staying here tonight. In case something comes up. There shouldn’t be anything …but just in case.”

Jongdae nods. That’s it. Byul’s fine. Now he can go home. But the man in front of him still seems a bit restless, and Jongdae needs to talk to someone, anyone, to get some perspective on his problem.

“Do you mind if I stay here and watch over him with you?” he asks.

“No! Absolutely not!” Mr. Kim exclaims. “Thank you so much Dr. Kim. I really appreciate this.”

Jongdae relaxes. “Call me Jongdae.”

“Call me Joonmyun.”

***

Joonmyun is a fund manager. Has a knack for making money. Bought his first stock at 14 using his mom’s account, commodity future at 18. Animatedly, he tells Jongdae of a day in which everyone was selling this stock.

“I couldn’t figure out why. The fundamentals were fantastic. So I took the opportunity to grab a bunch. And then the rumor was cleared. And the price went up and I sold what I had and made quite an amount,” he says and then shyly adds, “dumb luck. I know. Nothing to be proud of. Move along.”

“Come on. If you weren’t good you wouldn’t have held the stocks in the first place,” Jongdae says.

“You really think so?”

“Nah. It’s dumb luck. Nothing to be proud of. Move along.”

Joonmyun pouts. Jongdae laughs.

“So how did you become a vet?” Joonmyun asks.

“I went to vet school.”

“No how did you decide?”

“When I was eight I had a golden retriever named Marble. He’s the best thing in the world to me. One day Marble was sick and we brought him to the vet. After a lot of visits he didn’t make it so we had to put him down. The moment I said goodbye to him was when I decided that I’m going to be a vet and cure animals.”

“Did you cure all the animals?”

“No. Sometimes I can’t and I just make sure they’re as comfortable as possible.”

“Then what’s the point of the story?”

“There’s no point. That’s just how it happened.”

Joonmyun is silent for a moment and then bursts out laughing. Jongdae laughs too. It’s not every day that he meets someone that gets his sense of humor.

“You know when you came into the clinic and I watched you take Byul out of the carrier and the little guy was shedding all over your suit I had three theories. First, this man really loves the terrier. Second, this man is very clumsy. Third, this man has a lot of expensive suits so he doesn’t mind getting them dirty. Which among those is correct?”

“All three,” Joonmyun chuckles, “the third one only to a certain extent. I do have other suits but not a lot of them. You see, the job is part gambling, part sweet-talking. Have to dress well. Oops…”

Only then do they realize that they have been sitting quite close and a good bit of white fur has been transferred from Joonmyun’s suit to the arm of Jongdae’s black peacoat.

“Oh don’t worry about it,” Jongdae waves his hand. He has a lint roller. But more importantly he’s kind of enjoying Joonmyun’s warmth next to him.

So he lets out a breath he didn’t know he’s been holding when Joonmyun says, “Cool then,” and makes no move to scoot away.

***

The first and second are true. Joonmyun’s mom gave him Byul just a few months ago. She said he needed to learn to take care of someone, something, to teach him responsibility.

Normally Joonmyun leaves Byul at home alone every day from 8.30 to 5.30 and then takes Byul out for a walk after he gets home.

Today he had to meet a client, “really important, will raise our assets by half,” so he wore a suit. He was in such a hurry this morning that he did not have a proper breakfast, only taking his cocoa cereal out of the cupboard and pouring out a handful to eat while getting dressed and then forgetting to put it back into the cupboard.

“I left work early because I had the feeling that something’s not right. And when I got home I saw that he had vomited on the carpet. He’s really sorry about it. Poor little guy,” Joonmyun recalls, “I was so scared I didn’t think about changing out of my suit. And I left my coat at home now that I think about it…Oh I forgot to ask! Did you take care of the thing you said you have to?”

“What thing? Ah…that. I did,” Jongdae lowers his head, the emptiness he felt while he was driving away from the restaurant in the snow earlier this evening overwhelming him again. “It was a date. I just came back from it. It was not good. I told my date I had an emergency just to get out of it. Then I decided to come back here to check on Byul.”

He looks up to face Joonmyun, “I ditched my patient to go on a date. And had it been good I wouldn’t have come back. I’m sorry.” There’s no use lying now is there? Jongdae is pathetic and he has nothing to lose by admitting so. No wait. “Please don’t leave a review on petweb.”

“I won’t. Don’t worry,” Joonmyun says then, to Jongdae’s surprise, sighs with sympathy. “Bad date, huh? I’ve had plenty.”

***

Joonmyun tells Jongdae about the angry-looking giant that is a tax attorney but aspires to be a rapper that his friends set him up with.

And a suitor who is ten years younger, son of one of the clients. “He said the only things he likes are bubble tea and me,” Joonmyun shakes his head. “He’s in college now and still emails me once in a while, says he will definitely marry me when he graduates. It creeps me out.”

Jongdae laughs.

Jongdae has never been in a relationship before. The only person he ever liked was Yixing, who rejected him. Maybe he studied too hard in vet school and did not go out enough. Bullshit. Chanyeol did the exact same thing and still had Baekhyun. Maybe he’s just not cut out for love, in which case, wow, that’s sad.

“These setbacks don’t mean that you’re not cut out for love,” Joonmyun says. Jongdae jolts.

“They are only so that you will appreciate the real thing more when it happens.”

“They are?”

“I made that up,” Joonmyun snorts, “but maybe.”

Joonmyun smiles to him. Jongdae’s a bit dazed so he looks away.

Joonmyun and Jongdae talk about their jobs and lives and hobbies and everything in the world till it’s bright outside and a nurse arrives to tell them that Byul has stabilized considerably and only needs a few hours of monitoring before he can be dismissed in the afternoon.

“You can go to work now market’s opening in a few minutes I believe,” Jongdae tells Joonmyun. Seeing the beginning of a snowstorm outside, he takes out his coat and drapes it over Joonmyun. “Here. You’re going to need it more than I do.”

***

Baekhyun looks up from the counter when Jongdae steps in.

“Things went too well with Jongin I see,” he snickers.

“Huh?” Jongdae yawns.

“You’re wearing yesterday’s clothes. And you didn’t seem to get any sleep.”

“Yeah that,” Jongdae smiles tiredly, “that’s true. But not Jongin. No.”

“What? Tell me!” Baekhyun yells but Jongdae slips into his office and closes the door behind him and makes use of the little time he has before the first patient to lie on the examination table and catch some sleep.

***

Joonmyun comes in early in the afternoon to return Jongdae’s coat. Byul can’t stay still in his hands, nearly climbing on his face trying to lick it, too happy to be reunited with him.

“Remember to store your food carefully,” Jongdae tells him, petting the soft fur of Byul’s head.

“Can I have your number please?” Joonmyun asks, “in case I need any advice regarding Byul?”

“Sure,” Jongdae says, inputting his number in Joonmyun’s phone, “but you don’t have to call. There’s live chat on petweb. Here let me show you. I’m online during business hours…”

Baekhyun’s mouth is agape when Jongdae heads back into the clinic after waving goodbye to Joonmyun and Byul.

“You don’t like the fund manager?”

“I do. But he doesn’t like me,” Jongdae shrugs. Joonmyun didn’t say anything, did he?

“Technically you didn’t treat Byul. Why do you think he asked for your number?”

“In case he needs advices?”

“Oh my goodness,” Baekhyun facepalms.

Jongdae dashes towards the door.

But on his way out he’s met with the entirety of the Lee-Ahn household.

“Hello Dr. Kim, Dong and Kan and Kkangkkangie have fleas!”

***

When Choi Junhee brings her goldfish Red over, he’s already floating belly up inside the clear plastic bag. She wails because Jongdae can’t bring him back to life. Jongdae frowns at her dad Choi Jonghyun, who shrugs. “I’m sorry. She wouldn’t stop crying and kept asking to go to the vet so I had to bring her here.”

Jongdae sees the three off at the door, head hung low, not because of Red the dead goldfish but because Joonmyun is a really great person and Joonmyun liked him but he didn’t show that he liked Joonmyun and now Joonmyun won’t…

“Hey Jongdae? Someone is asking you if you’re free for dinner tonight,” Baekhyun asks from the counter.

“I only answer questions about domesticated animals,” Jongdae sighs.

“I told him to set up an appointment.”

“What?”

“Goodbye,” Baekhyun says and bolts out of the clinic. Only then does Jongdae realize that work has ended.

***

Jongdae’s turning off the lights, getting ready to lock up the clinic when someone walks in through the door. He turns to see–

“Joonmyun?”

“I guess that’s a yes?”

“What’s a yes? Oh!” Jongdae smiles wide. “So Baekhyun told you to set up an appointment?”

Joonmyun looks nervous. “I thought it’s you. I’m sorry. That was lame.”

“No,” Jongdae laughs, “I mean yes…I mean no, not lame, yes to dinner.” He’s stuttering but it’s fine because that seems to make Joonmyun happy. “Let’s go!”

“So how’s your day?” Joonmyun asks as they walk side by side to the parking lot.

Jongdae grins, “I think I inspired a child to become a vet today.”


End file.
